


One Memory

by MalecCrazedAuthor



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 2x15 promo stills, 2x15 speculation, Cheating, False Memories, I really have no idea how to tag this, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, or are they?, see notes - Freeform, sometimes people make bad choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 03:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11282934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecCrazedAuthor/pseuds/MalecCrazedAuthor
Summary: Magnus isn't sleeping well. Haunted by his experiences with the agony rune, he has to question which of his memories is real, and which of them aren't.





	One Memory

**Author's Note:**

> MAY CONTAIN SEMI-SPOILERS FOR 2x15 - BEWARE
> 
> This fic is something of an intellectual exercise. There's a lot of speculation about the 2x15 production stills, particularly the fact that Magnus and Alec are more or less wearing the same clothing they were when Alec went to Magnus's loft in 1x12. When coupled with production team tweets about a possible flashback to Season 1, people are hypothesizing that there was more to that scene than we saw.
> 
> We don't know, and we won't know until July 10. And I honestly don't think anything I describe in this fic would actually happen, but I just had to try to make the theories make sense in my head, and this is what I came up with.
> 
> Depending on your definition of the term, this fic contains scenes of infidelity. Read at your own risk.

It’s not yet sunrise when Alec awakens tangled the crimson satin bedding. The sheets beside him are cold; he’s been alone in bed for a while.

He finds Magnus exactly where he knows he will, sipping tea out on the balcony in the pre-dawn light. Alec shuffles his feet as he approaches to avoid startling him. Magnus turns his head slightly to look over his shoulder, the side of his mouth lifting in a half-hearted greeting.

“Couldn’t sleep again?” Alec murmurs, dropping a kiss on the side of Magnus’s neck as he wraps his arms around him from behind, then rests his chin on Magnus’s shoulder.

Magnus’s shrug jostles him. “I’m getting used to it. I should be already, really. It’s not like I haven’t seen dawn from the wrong side many, _many_ times. Usually those occasions involve very complicated jobs for clients or raucous parties, however. Insomnia isn’t usually my thing.”

Alec draws a slow breath. “Look, I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it, and I don’t want to push. But maybe if you were to get some it out there and stop stewing…” Magnus shakes his head quickly, but for the first time Alec doesn’t stop. “Whatever it is, Magnus, you can tell me. I swear. Whatever memories that agony rune brought to the surface, they’re not going to drive me away.”

Magnus pulls away from Alec’s loose hug and sets his teacup on the balcony railing, clasping his hands on the edge of the stonework. “I know that Alexander. And if it were just memories of the distant past, it’d be one thing.”

“What else is it?” Alec steps forward to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip, looking over the river at the city.

Magnus glances sideways at him. “Do you have any idea what an agony rune does?”

“Only what it says in the Grey Book. I’m guessing the experience is something else entirely. But it’s supposed to amplify the memories of the most traumatic things that have ever happened to you, or the things which haunt you the worst.” With centuries of life behind him, Magnus must have plenty of memories for the rune to pull from. “Loss, guilt, fear. It makes it so real it’s like living it all over again.”

“All that and more.” Magnus laughs bitterly. “I don’t know if what I experienced was part of the normal agony rune package, or if my experience was somehow affected also by the fact that I was a warlock’s soul trapped inside a Shadowhunter body, but there was something else. There were plenty of terrible memories based upon awful experiences, yes, but it also... _created_ memories where none existed before. Of things I fear, things that hurt me, many of which never actually happened.”

“Like what?” Alec turns to face him fully. Magnus’s eyes are distant and a little glassy. His knuckles are white where he grasps the railing.

“I couldn’t begin to list them all.” Alec suspects Magnus is trying for a blithe tone, but he falls far short. “Not surprisingly, you feature heavily in a few of them. Losing you, specifically.” There’s something very _fragile_ about Magnus as he speaks those words. Like the slightest jostle will shatter him. “Your death, of course. Sudden and violent, fighting demons tomorrow or the next day, or fighting Valentine, or even decades from now, after a lifetime together. But those aren’t the worst ones. The worst ones are the ones where you just...walk out on me.”

“Walk out?” Surprise makes Alec’s voice a little sharper than he intends. “It’ll never happen.”

Magnus’s Adam’s apple bobs sharply as he swallows. “You don’t get it. _It did._ ”

* * *

“ _I won’t ask again._ ”

Magnus knows the little disappearing trick is a petty touch, giving him the opportunity to get the last word in, and sparing him the ordeal of hearing another rejection. But he’s entitled to a little pettiness after the way Alec just accused him of playing games when he’s laid it all on the line for Alec in a way that he hasn’t done for another person in decades, and thought he’d _never_ do for a Shadowhunter.

He rifles through a few papers lying on the desk where he meets with clients and waits for the sound of the door closing behind Alec. But instead, he hears footfalls. Just a few. Slow, meandering, like they have no idea where to go.

He calls out. “Magnus please. _Please_.” His voice doesn’t _quite_ crack, but there’s a ragged edge of emotion there that suggests cracking isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Like his footsteps, Alec sounds lost, and it tugs at something inside Magnus.

Sympathy is something he can’t afford right now, but it’s there, and it has been since Alec admitted that he didn’t know if he was in love with Lydia. This poor, beautiful boy doesn’t even know what love is, and that’s an absolute _tragedy_ , that’s what it is. Because for all his contentious dealings with the Clave, Magnus has known too many Shadowhunters to be under the impression that the passions of the Nephilim burn gently. No, once set ablaze, those passions are an inferno, one that can immolate and purify, and maybe even destroy.

But Alec will never know that, never know what it is to be consumed by that fire. Not on the path that he’s determined to walk. Magnus can’t afford to be moved by that fact, and yet he is. He wants to help Alec, even wants to help Lydia, but there’s nothing…

Except there is.

_No_. No, that’s just... _no_. Absolutely not.

That’s a low Magnus to which has never brought himself to knowingly stoop. And if Alec were to go along with it, he wouldn’t be the sort of man for whom Magnus should be feeling this level of turmoil anyway.

_No_.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m going to ruin everything and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what’s right anymore.” Alec calls out from the other room, his voice getting quieter with each sentence, trailing away. “Just...help me, Magnus. Please. Tell me what to do.

His feet are in motion, pulled by that plaintive murmur, carrying him back to the living room even before Magnus really even decides to go. He stops in the doorway, his heart breaking a little to see Alec slumped dejectedly against one of the red brick pillars. His head is bowed, his eyes closed, and he just looks broken.

Magnus places one foot steadily, deliberately before the other as he crosses the room, taking his time with those slow strides. He needs the time, needs to sit with this decision in his mind for a moment. He’s crossing a line he’s always sworn he would never cross. It’s wrong, it’s a mistake, it will end badly, and he _knows_ that.

He takes that moment of strolling toward Alec to wrap his head around it, to accept it and all its inevitable fallout. When this is all over, he won’t be able to indulge in self-serving denials. He’s fully aware of what he’s doing.

He’s going to do it anyway.

Alec’s head snaps up when Magnus’s toes enter his line of sight. The expression on his face as as lost and shattered as his tone of voice was, and again that pulls at something inside Magnus, dragging him into Alec’s orbit against all better judgment.

“Kiss me,” Magnus says, making his voice firmer than his resolve.

It takes Alec a moment to comply, and Magnus is glad for that. Glad to see Alec go through the same process of knowing it’s wrong and making the _choice_ to walk unflinching into that wrongness.

And then Alec swallows. Licks his lips. Slides one hand gently along Magnus’s jaw and lays his mouth on Magnus’s.

The first tentative brush of Alec’s lips across his jolts him like an electric shock. Magnus’s lungs empty of breath on a startled gasp, which Alec swallows as his lips part and he closes in the kill.

And Magnus learns that for all his centuries, he knows _nothing_.

It’s not just a kiss, it’s a maelstrom, and it rips apart everything Magnus ever even _imagined_ he knew and flings it all into the wild winds. Alec falls back against the brick pillar, letting it support them both. His hands are on the nape of Magnus’s neck and the small of his back, dragging him closer. His tongue sweeps across Magnus’s lips and then plunges inside, and Magnus’s heart thuds against his ribcage like an enraged stallion kicking his stall. 

What hubris made him think he could teach this torn Nephilim boy what passion means?

By the time they wrench themselves apart, they’re both hard and shaking with need. Magnus’s hands have found their way under the hem of Alec’s shirt, fingers spanning the corded muscles and warm skin of Alec’s back.

And Alec...Alec looks just _devastated_.

His cheeks are flushed, his lips swollen, and his eyes...his eyes are almost feral, filled with confusion and fear and need.

“I didn’t _know_ ,” he rasps desperately. “I never—never knew.”

_Neither did I_ , Magnus wants to say, but the words that fall from his lips are far different.

“Give me one night. Just one.” Magnus bows his head and takes another moment to accept that he will never be able to reconcile this decision with what he knows to be right. It is _wrong_ , but nothing feels as wrong as letting Alec leave without at least trying to see where this might lead them. “If you can still walk away in the morning, I won’t try to stop you.”

Alec’s eyes close. His brow furrows for a moment. Then he meets Magnus’s gaze and takes his hand with all the willful trepidation of Eve reaching for the apple.

They stumble to the bedroom amid frenzied kisses and hands grasping for whatever purchase they can find. Alec sweeps the satin of Magnus’s robe off his shoulder and his open mouth lays a trail of heated kisses along the skin he’s bared. When Magnus had chosen to appear in dishabille for this meeting, his intent had been merely to tantalize. He hadn’t planned quite so literal a seduction, but he’s not backing away now. He tongues the rune on Alec’s neck and reaches low, dragging a groan from Alec’s throat as he tugs him into full contact.

Alec is trembling. The way he keeps moving back and forth between desperate determination and astonished wonder tells Magnus everything he needs to know about Alec’s level of experience. Perhaps that should have some relevance, but it just doesn’t right now. Scruples have ceased to be a thing that matters.

Alec’s shaking hands pull the belt on Magnus’s robe free and slip inside. His hot breath gusts against Magnus’s ear. “I just...Just _once_ , Magnus, I need to…”

Magnus cuts him off with another kiss, hard and demanding. He doesn’t want to hear it, that confirmation of what he already knows.

He’s being used. Alec doesn’t mean to do it, but that’s what this is. One moment in a lifetime of self-denial. One taste of what he can never let himself have. In the morning, all the reasons Alec is selling any hope of joy in his short, mortal life to the Clave will still be there, and he’ll carry through with his wedding.

Magnus buys time with that fierce kiss to reconcile himself to these facts. He shoves Alec’s jacket to the floor, drags Alec’s shirt over his head, and pulls him by the hand onto the bed.

* * *

Alec doesn’t try to make excuses or justify what he’s done, or what he will do. If nothing else, Magnus has to admire him for that. After the third round (or is it fourth? A couple of them really just melded together) he falls asleep, but Magnus doesn’t dare close his eyes. If he does, he knows Alec will be gone when he opens them again.

Instead, he leaves the bed, his heart heavy and his body humming with the memory of pleasure. He pulls on his discarded robe and and greets the dawn with a cup of tea, grasping for all the calm he can muster to power through these final moments and somehow convince Alec he’s okay with it all.

“Tell me honestly,” he asks when he hears Alec’s shuffling footsteps behind him. “What is it you’re afraid of? What’s the worst possible outcome if you don’t go through with this wedding?”

“Whatever will happen if Izzy and Max don’t have the Lightwood name and connections to protect them,” he says with no hesitation. “That trial—well, you saw. You saw how the Clave treats someone in disgrace. How they scapegoat someone. When Clary brought the Cup back, I thought maybe—maybe that would be enough, that we found the Mortal Cup and brought it back to the Clave. I thought maybe I could talk to Lydia and she’d understand. I-I-I think she really would.”

“But?”

“But now it turns out not only have we been helping Valentine’s daughter, we’ve been harboring his son for years.” He huffs humorlessly. “My parents got off lightly for what they did when they were in the Circle, because of our name. Hodge didn’t have that, and look where he is. I can’t let that happen to my little brother and sister.”

“Alexander, do you really believe Isabelle would want you to sacrifice your own happiness to protect her?” Magnus finally turns to face him. Alec is adorably tousled and there’s a glow to him that wasn’t there before last night. He looks like a man who has received divine revelation. Magnus shakes his head and sighs. “You have to know she didn’t ask me to be her advocate because she thought I had any hope of swaying the Inquisitor. Me? Persuade _Imogen Herondale_? That was never going to happen.”

Alec’s confused frown would be precious, if Magnus’s heart weren’t breaking for the dilemma Alec finds himself in. Magnus takes pity on him and lays it out plainly. “She asked me to represent her in the hope that seeing me again might convince you to call off your engagement. She blew her last shot at avoiding being deruned to try to help _you_ find some happiness after she was gone.”

Alec closes his eyes. “Even if that’s true, it was before we knew about Jace. Now that we do—”

“Even the Branwell name might not be enough to spare you the fallout from that one,” Magnus says. Alec winces and nods. “But let’s be honest, Alec. Max is too young to suffer any consequences for your family’s actions, and Isabelle would rather deal with whatever happens on her own terms. You have two possible futures laid before you. One is miserable but at least it’s familiar: duty and obligation, self-sacrifice and denial. The other is something you can’t even conceive the shape of. It’s completely _unknown_ , and that’s what really scares you, isn’t it? You don’t know who you are if you’re not denying yourself in the name of family.”

The look Alec gives him should by all rights be bleak, but instead it’s tender. He doesn’t smile, but his hands fall on Magnus’s waist and he pulls him close. Alec’s lips brush his, and then he lingers there with Magnus, resting forehead to forehead, breathing the same air.

“I swear, Magnus, if I thought I’d be the only one who had to pay the price, I’d find out. For you, I’d take that chance.”

“Well, that’s...lovely to hear.” Magnus is pleased his voice doesn’t sound as fragile as his composure feels. He smiles and steps back, patting Alec’s chest. “You may wish to tidy up. Before you return to...the Institute.”

He can’t say her name. He likes her, but he’s done her a great wrong and he hates her a little right now anyway. It’s an enmity he has no business feeling. She’s the only innocent one in this mess now.

He spends the moments Alec is washing putting himself together. He belts his robe, fingers his hair into shape, and refreshes his now-tepid tea.

“I should...I should get going,” Alec mutters when he reappears, sidling toward the door. He’s used a healing rune to get rid of the lovebites that had speckled his throat.

Magnus smiles blandly and nods. “Of course. Good luck, Alexander.”

When Alec turns away, Magnus murmurs an incantation under his breath and plucks the memory of the last twelve hours from Alec’s mind, molding its replacement into a boring evening of last-minute wedding plans, a demon hunt that kept him out until almost daybreak, and a strained but benign call upon Magnus to consult on Jocelyn Fairchild’s condition.

If he’s honest with himself, Magnus isn’t sure if it’s petty revenge or kindness driving him. Maybe both. Maybe he _wants_ to take that one memory Alec was so desperate to make, leaving Alec with even less than Alec is leaving him with.

But it’s also true that that memory will haunt Alec. It’ll strangle him with guilt and with a yearning for something he _knows_ he can never have again. It’ll drive him to despair, or to acts he’ll loathe himself for.

Alec’s chances of finding at least some contentment are far better without it.

Alec turns abruptly, glancing around the room in confusion. “Did you say something?”

“I said good luck finding the warlock who bespelled Jocelyn,” Magnus answers calmly. He even manages a smile. “Please, don’t hesitate to have the Institute call me if they wish to confer further on the matter. I’ll even offer a discounted rate.”

Alec frowns, but eventually nods. Magnus turns away, unable to watch him leave.

The sound of the door closing a moment later is like a gavel falling.

* * *

“You don’t get it. _It did._ ”

Alec tries to make sense of that statement and can’t. “I don’t understand. Do you mean in the detention cell?”

Magnus’s fists clench. This isn’t the cold, vacant distress Alec has seen him in so often since his ordeal in Valentine’s body. There’s something frantic to this.

“It’s not like remembering a nightmare, Alexander, not even a particularly vivid one. The memories that rune made are _real_ , every bit as real as if I had actually lived through the experience. So I can’t always tell which memories are true anymore.” He sighs raggedly. “Some of them I can. Obviously, you’re still here, so I know the ones where I saw you die are false. But others...I just can’t be sure.”

“ _I can_.” Alec gently grips Magnus’s shoulders and turns him until they’re face to face. “I’d remember walking out on you.”

Magnus hesitates at that. “Not...if I took the memory from you.”

Alec freezes. “You wouldn’t do that to me,” he says, trying for certainty and falling far short.

Magnus scoffs. “Wouldn’t I? If it seemed like an act of mercy at the time? If I thought I was setting you free?”

Alec swallows thickly. He can’t imagine the circumstances under which Magnus would ever do such a thing—which is really sort of a problem, isn’t it? What if he can’t imagine those circumstances because he can’t _remember_ them?

He hates himself for doubting. Shakes his head and resolutely pushes the thought away.

“No. No, we’re not doing this. We’re not going to play ‘what it’ games and second guess whether we can trust each other and ourselves. Not now,” Alec says adamantly. The thought that Magnus would betray him like that gnaws inside him, and he squashes it ruthlessly. Even if it really did happen, he repaid that betrayal with interest down there in that cell when he ignored Magnus’s desperate pleas for help and trussed him up to be murdered.

No more of this.

“Whatever happened— _if_ it happened, or if it’s a false memory created by that rune—whatever choice we made, they don’t matter now. I chose you, Magnus. I tried to walk out, once, but in the end I still turned away from that altar and everything it meant, and _I chose you_. That’s all there is to it. I’m not going anywhere and that’s what’s important. Anything else, we can deal with. Okay?”

Magnus closes his eyes but eventually he nods. When Alec tries to draw him in, he willingly steps into Alec’s arms and accepts his gentle kiss.

“Will you tell me about it? Whatever it is you don’t know really happened?” Alec asks softly, because he can’t help himself. He needs to know now.

Magnus swallows. “I will...but not today, please. Today I think I’d rather just enjoy the sunrise, and knowing that you’ll still be here when it’s over.”

Alec smiles and tightens his arms. “I can live with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com](http://maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com).


End file.
